Aneeqa Ilyas, Salman Munir, Muhammad Shaheryar Akram Toor.
Pericardial Effusion in myocardial infarction patients with and without thrombolysis.
J Cardiovascular Dis Jan ;14(1):19-21.

OBJECTIVES: To compare the frequency of pericardial effusion (PE) amongst those who were given thrombolytic therapy versus those who were not. METHODS: In this comparative cross-sectional study 100 acute MI patients were enrolled. Patients of 35-70 years of age from either sex with first episode of myocardial infarction were included while patients with traumatic CPR, chronic renal failure, on hemodialysis, pericardial effusion prior to acute myocardial infarction and with collagen vascular diseases were excluded. Thrombolysis was done in emergency room with streptokinase infusion who presented within 12 hours of onset of chest pain.The patients were then divided into group I, who received thrombolysis and group II, who did not receive thrombolysis. Frequency of thrombolysed patients was noted. All the patients were followed on day to day basis upto 4 days after MI. Echocardiography was done by a cardiologist ( having at least 5 year experience) on presentation (within 24 hours) and at day 2 and day 4.The primary outcome was pericardial effusion. All the data was recorded on a pre-designed proforma and analyzed by SPSS version 21.0.Chi-square test was used to compare the frequency of PE in both study groups taking p-value < 0.05 as significant. RESULTS: Out of total 100 cases, PE was found in 28 (28%) patients. Among 28 patients who developed pericardial effusion during hospital stay, 12(16%) were from group I and 16(64%) were from group II. The difference was statistically significant (p-value < 0.0001). CONCLUSION: The chances of developing pericardial effusion after thrombolysis with streptokinase are minimal as compared to patients in whom thrombolysis is not given.

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